LA ⋆ Chapter 21: Romantic

Cheng Ai's sofa had a hard frame, but the upholstery was made of the same material as a lazy-boy recliner.

When Sheng Yao sat on it alone, his entire body sank into it, and he didn't react in time, nearly crying out. He thrashed his leg, like a pathetic little chick embedded in the sofa, and couldn't help but feel a kind of embarrassment at his own naïveté.

After twisting and squirming to adapt to the sofa's particular way of seating, he discovered that no matter how he sat, it felt like the sofa was enveloping him from all sides.

By the time Cheng Ai finished tidying up the kitchen, Sheng Yao had already composed himself.

Cheng Ai brought out a plate of fruit—peeled pomelo segments. The moment Sheng Yao saw what was on the plate, he was momentarily distracted.

"To cut the richness."

"Thanks."

Cheng Ai set down the fruit and sat as well.

With a whoosh, the spot where he'd sat was pushed up, and Sheng Yao was launched out, landing on the floor with a thud. He looked back in confusion and saw Cheng Ai sinking into the sofa: "President Cheng, your sofa has quite a personality."

Cheng Ai hadn't expected this either and quickly pulled Sheng Yao up: "I'm used to sitting alone. I didn't know what it would be like with two people."

Luckily there was a carpet under the sofa, and with winter clothes on, it was fine.

"I'll sit on the floor," Sheng Yao said, settling cross-legged where he was.

The light dimmed beside him as Cheng Ai sat down next to him.

"Want to watch a movie?" Cheng Ai suggested, worried that if they stayed awkward much longer, Sheng Yao would leave.

Sheng Yao nodded: "Sure. What kind of movies do you watch, President Cheng?"

"Let me look," Cheng Ai got up to find the remote and turn on the projector. "I have a watchlist."

The lights were dimmed to a soft glow, and the room held a faint sandalwood scent. The floor heating made everything so comfortable that one wanted to fall asleep. Sheng Yao sat on the floor watching Cheng Ai stand barefoot, his legs long and his waist narrow. As he switched between films, different light and shadow played across his body.

Cheng Ai's watchlist, already-watched list, and Sheng Yao's interests somehow aligned perfectly—mostly art films and dramas. *The Piano in a Factory*, *The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*, *Descent*, *The Grand Budapest Hotel*, and so on.

In the end, they chose *The Reader*.

A shy fifteen-year-old boy falls in love with a beautiful thirty-six-year-old woman, a shocking love that arrives quietly in the reading voice of a summer day. Post-war Germany is desolate, and Hannah leaves without a word. Eight years later, they meet again in a courtroom, where Hannah is the defendant and Michael is a law student there for an internship. Michael could have helped Hannah clarify the facts, but he chose silence, and Hannah was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment. Michael sends Hannah cassette tapes of himself reading while she's in prison, as if returning to that summer. At the end of the film, Hannah takes her own life.

"My whole life, I have been fighting against the past."

"Love, perhaps, is the only way to overcome death."

Sheng Yao and Cheng Ai sat side by side, their distance neither close nor far. The two of them didn't exchange much, only occasionally hearing the sound of pomelo being eaten.

There was a scene where Hannah and Michael sit in a bathtub, Michael holding a book and reading aloud.

Sunlight, water, skin, eyes, words, white.

Intense heat, romance, love and hate, ethics, silence.

A surge of warmth rose in Sheng Yao's heart, and fortunately, in the darkness, it remained hidden.

The credits began to roll, and Cheng Ai got up to turn on the lights. Still the gentle warm glow, letting eyes slowly adjust from darkness to brightness.

Sheng Yao's legs had gone numb. He crawled onto the shapeless sofa to rest for a moment before standing up with a shake. He glanced at his watch—past ten. He should leave, to catch the subway before it closed.

"I should go," Sheng Yao said.

Cheng Ai quickly replied: "I'll walk you downstairs."

Sheng Yao didn't refuse. The two of them entered the elevator side by side, red numbers jumping, stretching out endlessly. Sheng Yao pretended to look at the floor numbers, his gaze secretly glancing toward Cheng Ai.

From that slightly angled view, the lines of his profile were clear and smooth—the tip of his nose, his lips, his jawline.

Cheng Ai suddenly turned back, his eyes carrying a hint of inquiry.

Sheng Yao didn't look away. Instead, he said: "Thank you. I had a really good time tonight."

Cheng Ai smiled: "I had a good time too."

Ding! The elevator doors slowly opened.

The entrance door on the first floor was open, and as soon as they stepped out, cold wind rushed in, the chill striking their faces.

Sheng Yao tucked both hands into his pockets, hunched his neck, and said to Cheng Ai: "President Cheng, it's cold. You should go back up."

Cheng Ai nodded, but instead of turning back, he gazed into Sheng Yao's eyes. Sheng Yao's brow furrowed slightly, confusion written across his face.

Cheng Ai: "Sheng Yao, we're not at the company. You don't need to call me President Cheng. I want to hear you call me Cheng Ai."

The colder the air became, the hotter Sheng Yao's face felt. His whole body felt as if it were being roasted by fire.

"Cheng Ai, see you," he said, then turned and disappeared into the night.

When he got home, Sheng Yi had already returned.

He was sitting on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, looking very much like he was preparing to pass judgment.

Sheng Yao was taken aback for a moment, then said: "You came back on Friday this week?"

Sheng Yi glossed over that remark and asked: "Why are you so late?"

Sheng Yao: "I went to a friend's place for dinner and a movie."

Sheng Yi's eyes flickered: "When did you make friends?"

"?" Sheng Yao walked over in his slippers. "I've been working for years. Can't I make a friend?"

Sheng Yi pursed his lips: "Why is your face so red?"

Sheng Yao didn't want to talk to him anymore. He threw out "the subway was too hot" and went into the bathroom to wash up.

Sheng Yao felt like he was entering a new kind of life experience.

Or, to be more precise, two kinds—one called ambiguity, one called anticipation.

Every day at noon, after Sheng Yao received the coffee text, Shuitan would let out a laugh full of innuendo. Sheng Yao roughly knew why Shuitan was laughing. He didn't call her out on it, didn't stop her, and played dumb without a trace.

Sharing coffee and cake was a routine that had continued for over two years, but now it felt different. As for what was different, Sheng Yao thought about it—in the past, food went into his stomach, but now his tongue was tasting the cream. Or perhaps the afternoon tea during the day was an extension of Friday dates.

Anticipation was something he became aware of during their last gathering before the Spring Festival break.

That night they watched *Triangle*. Sheng Yao was unmoved by horror and suspense—probably because deep down he felt life was scarier than ghosts, that humans were pre-made ghosts and ghosts were expired humans.

But Cheng Ai clearly wasn't as numb. When a scene came that made one's back go cold, Cheng Ai grabbed his hand. Sheng Yao turned his palm over, letting Cheng Ai interlock their fingers. Fingers nested in the spaces between fingers, like two vines entwining together.

In the darkness, Sheng Yao felt Cheng Ai looking at him.

But Sheng Yao's attention was on the movie, pretending to be on the movie.

*Triangle* told the story of a group of people endlessly cycling through death and rebirth on a ship.

Sheng Yao thought of a poem with only a loose connection, Li Shangyin's "Night Rain: A Letter to the North."[[1]] A seven-character quatrain, twenty-eight characters total, with "night rain in Bashan"[[2]] mentioned twice, taking up eight characters, two-sevenths of the whole. It's clearly about wanting to meet, but after reading the whole thing, all that remains is the rain, as if from body to heart one is trapped in this rain, cycling through it forever.

This was a classic Sisyphean cycle of tragedy.

Cheng Ai's gaze returned to the film. Sheng Yao's gaze fell on Cheng Ai.